O Scale Freight Car Guide: Intermodal Cars

The frame and tractors pictures are HO.

Swafford and Naveen

Thanks for the posts.  You have hit on an interesting area for O scale modeling.

Who has the tooling for the K-Line spine cars?

WBB. They just released the K-line version of a front runner.

Speaking to Jack Lynch, the 5 car sets would be too expensive to produce for todays marketplace. Afterall, the "front Runners" are about $80.00 ea!

Thank you

There are several container chassis (plural) for sale on the Bay right now.  In the past I have bought some of these at a very reasonable price...not today...the prices are already thru the roof with hours to go.

 superpower, I got some cars from the late Ed R here on the forum. They are metal. I forget the name of the company he sold them as. I have a different one made of wood.

Here are some images of the WSI 1:50 scale container chassis with K-Line 20’ ISO tank containers. The tractor unit is a 1:50 scale Australian Kenworth K200 imported by TWH Collectables.

Here are some images of the WSI 1:50 scale container chassis with a WSI 1:50 scale 40’ flat-rack container in the colors of Ocean Traders, with some construction machines.

Here are some images for the K-Line chassis for the 20’ containers. I
like this model better since the container was more scale-proportioned making
them look good together. I used the International tractor from the K-Line
Ringling Bros truck / trailer set to pose with the chassis & containers.

Here are some images of the K-Line 40’ container chassis. I did not like this much, not just because it lacks a lot of details but also because the K-Line container that it is compatible with is severely undersized in all dimensions, length, width & height compared to prototype dimensions for ISO containers. That made the combination look bad, so bad that you couldn’t pose it next to any scale containers like Atlas or MTH.

Here are some images of the Atlas-O 45’ trailers with a tractor unit, a 1:50 scale Australian Kenworth T904 imported by TWH Collectables.

Here are some images of the Bowser 53’ trailers with a T904 tractor
unit.

These are just my opinion,

Thanks,

Naveen Rajan

Joe,

The articulated cars in your photos look like the H&B metal cars manufactured in the early to middle 90's. You have a very rare set in your possession if indeed they are the H&B brand. O scale is definitely in need of some articulated intermodal well cars. Thanks for posting pics of those cars, you don't see those often!

superpower is correct. one can see the H&B engineering logo in the center of the car:

Hi Ted • We saw the caboose go away, will the Intermodal Car, take away the boxcar & reefer car?

Gary

I don't think so Gary, at least not anytime soon. The caboose was not a revenue car and was done in by shifting technology and labor practices, making them unnecessary.

Box cars and reefers are used by customers that have direct rail access at both the shipping and receiving ends. They have higher capacity than containers and can be loaded and unloaded more easily. Their fate is tied to what customers want, and not to what the railroads want.

Yesterday was a great day for O scale intermodal lovers, as Atlas announced that they will be producing these:

It looks like these will be 3-car sets. Assuming there will be 2 road#s/set I will probably get both road #s of the TTX (speed lettering) well cars and 1 road # of the "Pacer StackTrain."

I will leave 2 sets open for Canadian Pacific well cars anticipating these will be done in subsequent runs.

Newly-tooled 53' containers will be forthcoming, too. That's awesome news for sure!

Would someone on this forum know why TTX Gunderson Stack cars have markings “DO NOT LOAD 20 FT CONTAINER”? I bought 2 5-car sets of Atlas Gunderson cars with the new TTX logo, from the most recent run & the C-D-E cars have this marking as shown in the following photo. I thought this was a mistake until I came across this image of the real Gunderson car with the same markings. My BNSF Gunderson cars from an older run do not have this marking.

Thanks,

Naveen Rajan

Probably some sort of weight limitation, I'll bet.  And I'm guessing that notice not being on previous Gundersons was an oversight; the Pecos River Brass bulkhead cars carried that warning years ago. 

More likely that a 20 foot container should NOT be loaded in the space for a 45 foot container.

Atlas will also be coming out with 57' containers.

Clem 

Sorry, but on these bulkhead cars, the bottom well will only accommodate a 40' container!